A car tax doesn't look at the situation of who is driving, and to Joseph's point, where the poor people will park outside of the zone because they can't afford the extra tax. It also completely ignores the well-known point that tolls are in inefficient way to collect taxes: toll booths create congestion; recent automation of tolls drives the price up (which is nice if you're the contractor, but lousy if you're the municipality).
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It's my understanding that PlaNYC2030 is primarily based on London's congestion plan.
Wisely, NY's technocrats shopped around, paying attention to Singapore and several other large, urban centers with auto control schemes but London was apparently the chief model.
Of course, London and NY are very different but I suspect they're enough alike (at least, when it comes to the question of traffic congestion, which seems to exhibit reasonably reliable patterns the world over) to use London's experience to-date as a guide to how things might work in NY if Bloomberg's plan is enacted.
So, how are things working out in London? Is a dispassionate analysis available? Has London's automated charging mechanism -- which is "intelligent" CCTV license plate scan based -- created a "toll booth congestion" problem? Have prices (and I assume Jordan that you mean toll prices) increased because this tech has been deployed?
PlaNYC2030 would use CCTV license plate scanning and also modify the existing EZ-Pass nodes in the NYC congestion zone to be congestion pricing 'aware'. Would this raise prices and create choke points?
How about the impact on working people? Has congestion pricing hurt middle class and poor London area commuters who're car dependent?
I'm tired of opinions. Like cheap cologne and promises whispered in coitus, they tend to be applied too eagerly.
Where's the damn data?
.d.
-- Yuri, please switch the camera to AGC mode using the ATV control. Copy.
...................... http://monroelab.net/blog/